Not that he'd admit it, but there must have been times when Josh Dibb has wondered if he's the butt of some cruel cosmic joke. As the rest of his band Animal Collective were making the leap from Pitchfork-approved psychedelic squawkers to critically acclaimed custodians of the zeitgeist with 2009's Merriweather Post Pavilion, Dibb was off on an extended sabbatical, building a barn in his native Maryland. Now for the follow-up to Merriweather he's back in the fold, and what happens? He's up to his waist in swamp water with a smoke bomb strapped to his face.

The occasion is ODDSAC, a 54-minute "visual album" in which Dibb plays something of a leading role, appearing as a Nosferatu-style vampire who attacks a camping party and perishes in a puff of smoke as dawn breaks. No Gollum-like CGI here, though; in true low-budget horror-flick style, it involved rubber prosthetics, smoke bombs, and a dollop of glue to check that nothing fell off along the way.

"Everyone had a tough time in so far as having shit poured on them, but Josh definitely had it the worst," recalls director Danny Perez. "We had to do multiple takes for technical reasons; every time he'd come out of the water going [hopefully] 'You get that OK?'"

"I had to go in and out of that swamp a few times," adds Josh. "I swallowed a lot of water."

ODDSAC itself is sensually spectacular and utterly bewildering, a widescreen mutant with 1960s head-trip visuals, horror B-movies, and the counterculture art films of Kenneth Anger in its genes. Cynics might declare it the sort of creative left-turn that experimental bands have a habit of making when they get a whiff of the mainstream and lose nerve. Actually, the movie's been in the works since 2006, when DVD company Plexi got in touch with the idea of making a tour documentary and, not exactly being Metallica, Animal Collective proposed something "more psychedelic". A visual album, with images inspiring music which in turn inspired more images, in ODDSAC, everything oozes. In one scene, a young woman tears at some wallpaper, before trying to stem a sudden flow of gloopy black liquid. In another, a gang of girls engage in a particularly sloppy food fight. The title, says the band's Dave Portner, is "sort of a reference to the fact we all like gummy candies like Haribo Gummi Bears and thinking about creating this really messed-up pack of candy."

That's not to say ODDSAC is sweet, though. It's a feast for the eyes, sure, but with a weird aftertaste. "The other day I read an interview with Harmony Korine about Trash Humpers," he adds. "He said he wanted it to seem like this videotape you could have just found in the garbage somewhere, like, 'What is this?' Something like that was really inspiring."